Sheeple. For one, that’s a weird word. For two, WE ARE ALL SHEEPLE. You can fight it all you want. But as long as you live and breath in our society, you will be conforming to someone’s stereotype of something. You can become less of a stereotype, maybe be really cool and mix and match your stereotypes, but someone has a stereotype for every group of people; every age, gender, race, political group, and religious group.

So what is a stereotype? As a noun, it is “oversimplified conception: an oversimplified standardized image of a person or group“ (Encarta ® World English Dictionary) So it’s not necessarily a fair judgment. But usually, to become a stereotype, a majority of the people in that group have to share that characteristic or characteristics.

The word ‘sheeple’ is something created by other people to categorize the people who blindly follow what they’re told, like sheep. They fixate on a leader and do whatever that leader says, until a leader they like better comes along and captures their attention.

We all think that we're the only conscious human in a world of sheep; we look around at everyone else and think "Wow, look at all these empty-headed conforming blanks. Am I really the only real person left?" We wonder why the rest of the world doesn’t wake up like we do. We get a small rush of superiority saying to ourselves, “I’m not a sheep anymore, I could not conform, but I’m a happier person pretending to be a sheep.” But that’s the thing. If we all “aren’t sheep”, and yet no one sees the wheels turning in your head because we’re “happier” being sheep, you’re still a sheeple. How could you possibly break away?

Teens are guilty of being sheep a lot. A teen’s hemispheres (their left and right brain) aren’t connected, because in nature, right now is when we should be breeding like rabbits and moving away and starting families of our own. It also causes us to not want to be like our parents, dye our hair, and think somehow that we are such rebels and so different from our fat, old, blank and dying parents. Has it occurred to us that they did the same thing when they were young? I think society creates this image of teenage rebellion so that we get it all out of our system as kids and then go on to be productive adults.

Note, turn off the inner conspiracy theory; I'm not saying society is bad, I honestly think it works pretty well. There's never been a perfect society. But look around. How many of you have a computer, a TV, cell phone, ipod, itunes? How many pirate music? (If you’re really edgy, you pirate books too!) I'm sitting here on my computer, with my cell phone in my pocket, the TV on, my itunes blasting pirated "edgy" music, being a happy sheeple.

Society works, don’t you think? Do you have food on the table? Did you learn in school? (Don’t give me any of that anti-establishment bull, you’ve learned enough to read this.) People are generally happy. We have all our basic needs taken care of. I will admit that society doesn’t allow us as much mental stimulation as I would like, but until someone nukes us, I’m not going to admit society is bad.

Back to Sheeple-dom. We all think we're better than everyone else, that we're the conscious ones, the non-conformist ones, the rebels, etc, and we are all exactly the same. To get out of clichés (as every true rebel does) we do the opposite, thus becoming the cliché of a rebel. Or a non-conformist. Or a non-sheeple. I don’t care which, pick your cliché.

Answer me this; how can we get free? I’ve done/I’m in the rebel phase, I have five piercing, there’s spray paint under my fingernails and as soon as I have enough money I want to either add to my piercings or dye my hair. But I realize that every teen rebel does the same thing. I waver on whether or not my realization makes me better; the vain side of me likes to think it does. The logical side says that every intelligent person realizes they’re like everyone else. I think I’m having an identity crisis.

Various rebel groups: We’ve got the FDA haters, the anti-government kids, the daddy’s money druggies, the environmentalists who are only environmentalists because their parents don’t recycle. We’ve got the antichrists, the fake-punks (does punk even exist anymore??) the anti-Itunes music piraters (how many people know what the true problem with Itunes is? I don’t fully understand it or I’d stick it in here. Read Free Culture.) the hackers, the Hot Topic Goths, the list goes on and on. Each and every one fits a stereotype of some kind. Find me a person who isn’t a sheeple, please.

In conclusion, I think I would rather be a happy sheeple! We have two options: either have our heads too far in the sand to see what we’re doing is conforming, or to have our heads too far up our a**es to see that by non-conforming, we’re conforming to a different standard. Personally, I prefer sand to s***. I like my cell phone. I like my pirated music and I like my movies. I like wearing makeup and thinking I’m edgy. I’m a happy sheeple. Are you?